Isle teachers are 'ridiculous' ones

I felt such resentment over hearing Linda Lingle being referred to as “;ridiculous”; over her well-planned and good-faith negotiations to settling the furlough days. No local politician talks as directly or as clearly as she does, but the teachers and their spokesman continue to purposefully misinterpret the language of her negotiations.

Does the union think its members are somehow above volunteerism? I don't know of one organization that in some way or another doesn't promote giving back to the community and the inherent good that it does.

Why don't the teachers who actually want to fulfill three volunteer days be fully supported, and then let's ask the parents of these furloughed students if these teachers are being “;ridiculous.”; Or are there none that would actually like to volunteer? For crying out loud, it's three days!

Teachers' greed is unbelievable

School board Chairman Garrett Toguchi says that Gov. Linda Lingle's request for teachers and principals to return to classrooms without pay for three Furlough Fridays left in this school year is “;reckless”; and “;ridiculous.”;

I'll tell you what's reckless and ridiculous: We taxpayers pay them for 12 months of work and they only work nine months out of the year. If you add in all the administrative days, sick days, holidays and vacations, that's down to less than eight months annually.

Three days. That's all that's holding this whole thing up. Three days. And they still won't budge. Unbelievable.

All families deserve rights

The ad published in the Star-Bulletin by The Hawaii Equality Foundation is a wonderful reminder about how the wonderful diversity we have in Hawaii is best celebrated and reinforced by allowing those beautiful families all to have their simple civil rights and be allowed the same access to marriage and family life.

The sooner House Bill 444 is passed, the better.

Legislature right to kill HB 444

Thank you, lawmakers, for voting to table House Bill 444 on civil unions and fixing our budget.

GOPAC memo was disgraceful

When the message is couched in just the right way for the audience that most needs to hear it, applause is merited.

In the Star Bulletin's

Sunday comic section (April 25), political cartoonist Garry Trudeau reminded those of us who were paying attention when it happened of the seminal move upon which the most devastating attack on our electoral and legislative system was based - and the act that simultaneously began the terrible decline and disfiguration of the Republican Party into the almost unrecognizable political device it has become.

Newt Gingrich's GOPAC memo is a disgrace to the party of Lincoln, and it is directly responsible for the political polarization and gridlock of our national legislative system that ensued.

The reminder of this cancer comes at a time when the saner members of the GOP have finally found their tongues and begun attempts to speak through the fringe's rants and tears at the far right.

A great party patriot, Pat Buchanan regularly attempts to bring sanity into the discussion and some are finally paying attention to the libertarian Ron Paul, who has long warned the GOP leadership that they are astray. He, speaking at a convention of Southern conservative governors lately, got a standing ovation for simply repeating the simple truth he has voiced for several years: The current GOP is neither Republican nor conservative.